We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Under any circumstances, the rest of the country -- with the exception of a few markets such as Manhattan and downtown Chicago -- could not absorb the costs for housing or the taxes California imposes on its residents and businesses. Part of the reason stems from the fact that California is indeed different; its climate, topography, cultural life cannot be easily duplicated in Kansas City, Dallas or anywhere else. People will pay for the privilege of living in California, particularly along the coast. Would they do so to live in Minneapolis or Charlotte?

"We Americans are
ruled by a non-religious elite and we seem unbothered by it"
You'll never convince me that Obama and a good number of others in DC aren't disciples of the Devil, not just Atheist. And yes, it bothers me a lot.

Golden Globes
Wow, the scoldy old crone shtick, ala SNLs church lady, is never ending. It must be compulsive for the tedious, or internalized by the fringy types, Right and Left, but especially the moon bats. What is more amazing is that they can't figure out why it didn't work for the GOPe or the HRC campaign. It isn't about Trump.

It is easy to mistake cool for someone who is just so narcissistic that he doesn't give a fig for what is the right thing to do. He is just going to ram his far-left ideology down our throats whether we want it or not. The only saving grace has been that his executive orders will be a lot easier to undo than laws would have been.

Cool is doing the right thing and not caring about criticism. He has faced almost no criticism for dividing the country. Or driving us so deeply in debt. Or helping to destroy black communities by bringing in unprecedented numbers of illegals and violating the law to keep them here. If one of my tribe had done these things, the liberal media would have howled for blood...daily. Yet now I hear how cool he always was with no real criticism. What a life he must lead!

JK Brown: And remember, all this has happened at just the expectation of Trump being President.

Yes. Talk has happened.

The U.S. economy is already creating a couple million jobs per year. As for Alibaba, be careful you don't get played. Cronyism can be a significant problem for long-term growth.

MarketWatch: "These aren’t promises of traditional labor-force “jobs” that many Americans dream of when they listen to Trump’s rhetoric on job creation. They’re merely part of a publicity stunt that plays on Alibaba’s previous announcements to expand its presence outside of China, particularly in the U.S."

Median incomes have now recovered from the Great Recession. The U.S. needs to continue to modernize in order to compete in global markets. The U.S. is very well positioned, with a highly educated and motivated workforce, a strong market economy, and substantial natural resources.

As for Alibaba, they aren't talking about creating any jobs themselves, but of secondary effects creating additional low-paying service jobs.

DrTorch: Making assertions while selecting only a few relevant factors, while ignoring others

You forgot to note the other factors you consider relevant.

DrTorch: However, the optimism you project has a greater probability of being justified w/ Trump in office.

The proposed policies (tax and regulatory cuts) will probably be stimulative in the short run, but may have deleterious effects in the longer term (debt and corruption). It depends on the specifics. Trump has not been particularly clear or consistent.

The U.S. has had about 80 straight months of job growth, adding about 15 million jobs since the end of the recession. The U.S. is well poised for long term economic growth.

Many of the quotes aren't found anywhere in their exact form. However, people say all sorts of things, some more strongly supported than others. In any case, let's just take a couple of statements for consideration: "Global warming will cause fewer hurricanes," and "Global warming will cause more hurricanes."

The relationship between Atlantic hurricanes and global warming is still an open question in science. Hence, you will naturally find some scientists saying more and some saying fewer. That doesn't undermine the consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. The current evidence suggests that there will be more strong hurricanes, but fewer hurricanes overall. See Kang & Elsner, Trade-off between intensity and frequency of global tropical cyclones, Nature Climate Change 2015.

The science indicates that continued greenhouse gas emissions will cause substantial change to Earth's environment. This will cause stress on human resources, and lead to the destruction of much of humanity's ecological inheritance.

Nearly all research points to a climate sensitivity in the range of 2-4°C. These estimates are supported by many different observational means, including studies of volcanic eruptions, timing of ice ages, and energy budget calculations.

You do understand that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? And that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means the surface is warmer than it otherwise would be?

The question whether hotcoldwetdry is causing more or fewer hurricanes is not politically open enough to shield academics from hysterical persecution if they come out on the wrong side of the issue in any given year--it can be hard to keep track of what the orthodoxy is from time to time. But it's nice to know you still entertain the concept of an open issue. That's an attitude on which some actual science can be built.

Texan99: it's nice to know you still entertain the concept of an open issue.

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA: "It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate)."

Consequently, it is not unexpected that different scientists may have different views on the subject.

Soon, your lighting will depict flickering flames, ocean waves, or tropical forests. Your wallpaper may change with your moods. As for the old fogies, they can have their LEDs look like an incandescent bulb.

LOL on the Salon piece. Good luck with that. Assange has stated many, many times that it was not Russia. Wikileaks has a 10 year history of accuracy. I would trust Wikileaks over a politicized intelligence department any day...

mary: The Russkies are supposed to be brilliant enough to hack the election!, but not smart enough to cover their tracks???

The NSA is not without technical means. Everything on the Internet leaves a trace. If it were a single action, then it might be difficult to trace, but the Russian have engaged in a pattern of behavior over years.

From what I understand, the Southern Poverty Law Center started off as a direct marketing firm, then found out there was more money to be made by encouraging people to hate one another. Who woulda thunk it?

Popular Mechanics did a nice infographic of the spectra from various types of lamp:
http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/06/54d11defcb70b_-_lightbulb-wars-00-0911-xln.jpg

Those are indicative, each manufacturer has their own secret blend of phosphors to achieve the target light-quality they seek for CFL or LED replacement lamps, so the frequency and power of the bumps and spikes will vary between different brands. Incandescents are pretty much all the same, however, just shifting more to the red-end as the voltage drops below the nominal voltage they were intended to be used at.

The criticisms of the Krigel et al. article that I've seen haven't been very cogent, I get the impression that the scientific validity of the article is greatly hampered by the fact that the Daily Mail likes the conclusion, rather than that there was any better or more valid methodology to look into the question. We've known about blue-light retinal risk since at least the mid 1970s.

In practice, most LED home "bulb" makers attempt to filter out the below-visible-spectrum blue. The bulbs with warmer color temperature undoubtedly do better at this, and the ones with high "color rendering index" should do even better because a lot of effort was put into optimizing the spectral power.

When buying bulbs, nowadays one should look at lumens for brightness, color temperature for warm-vs-clinical-white preference, and the highest CRI available.

Plus it needs to physically fit in the fixture, have the correct base size, be a "dimmable" bulb if any sort of electronic switching or dimming is used, and be rated for "enclosed fixtures" if used were it wont naturally convect good airflow for cooling itself.

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